In the same hard-nosed interview with the “Rossiya-1” TV channel on Aug. 4 in which he announced that “the era of Moscow’s unilateral concessions is now definitely over,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov explained that the recent deployment of NATO F-16s to Ukraine had opened the floodgates to unlimited escalation against Russia. Interviewer Olga Skabeyeva asked: “F-16s made their first sorties in Ukraine. Strikes on Russia are also allowed. Our actions?” to which Ryabkov responded:
“They do not have weapons which could change the situation on the battlefield in their favor. The F-16s, like everything that we saw on Poklonnaya Gora [park where trophy Western military hardware captured in the Donbass was put on display in May], and now there’s a Patriot system in that park—their wreckage and burnt fuselages will also be displayed there. The problem is escalation. The problem is that there are no circuit breakers anymore. You correctly said that strikes on the territory of Russia are allowed. The Americans’ assurances that no such decisions have been made and no indulgences were granted to Kiev, are worthless.”
